Mr Barrow Has a Manly Fall
by tito72
Summary: The second day of the illness, Mr. Barrow is, if anything, even worse. When Jimmy brings his breakfast tray, he's sweating like mad in his sleep and won't rouse for anything. Jimmy sets the tray down so hard he's sure the teacup chips (and they'll laugh later, he's sure, about how much crockery this fever cost the house). Follows Nanny Barrow Gets a Kiss


Jimmy's not actually there when the tray gets dropped, which is just as well, because he's sure Carson would have found a way to pin it on him if he'd been anywhere within a ten meter radius. But actually, he's running an errand for his lordship in the village at just that time. The first he hears about the tray is when he gets back into the servant's hall and trails into the kitchen (hoping to spot an unattended pudding or something of the kind) just in time to hear Daisy say, "It weren't his fault, Mrs. Patmore, really!"

"I know that, girl," Mrs. Patmore says, rolling her eyes and brandishing her long wooden spoon in Jimmy's direction. "Don't think I don't know what you're about, you," she tells him warningly. "You'll get nothing from me, ya filthy beggar."

"I'm not even that dirty!" Jimmy protests, though he is, a bit. He'll have to go clean up upstairs before Carson sees him. "And anyway, I dunno what you're talking about. I'm not after anything." She keeps looking at him all suspicious, though, so he turns to Daisy and says, "What weren't whose fault, then?"

"The tray," Daisy explains. "Did you not hear the crash when he dropped it? I thought the whole house musta heard that noise."

"I was out," Jimmy explains. "But who? Who dropped it? Not Molesley?" It'd be a good laugh, if that was the case, but he'd have to find Mr. Barrow first to share the fun.

"No, not him. Were Mr. Barrow. I don't think he hit his head that hard, but Mrs. Hughes sent him upstairs to lie down."

"Hit his head?" Jimmy repeats, heart stuttering in fear. "What the devil happened?"

"Hey now!" Mrs. Patmore says, actually smacking his hand with the spoon. "I'll not have that language in me kitchen."

"Ouch!" Jimmy says, yanking is hand away and taking two large steps back from the old madwoman.

"And Daisy," the cook continues. "You're just confusing the poor lad. Tell him the whole story and be done with it or don't tell him anything at all. And either way, make it quick. You've a soup to attend to."

"Right," Daisy says, nodding sagely. "Mr. Barrow came back with a breakfast tray and he had a fainting spell or something like that. He dropped the tray and china went everywhere. Everyone came a'running, but he was alright, only bleeding a bit, so Mrs. Hughes sent him upstairs to lie down. And that's it. That's what happened."

"Bloody hell," Jimmy says, then bolts before Mrs. Patmore can have at him with the spoon again. He makes it up the stairs in record time and barges into Mr. Barrow's room without even knocking. He'd been picturing Mr. Barrow's condition as something akin to how he'd been after the beating meant for Jimmy, but it's really not all that bad: he's pale, sure, and holding a cool rag to his head where he must have bumped it, but he smiles up at Jimmy almost as normal and says, "Hullo."

"Oh," Jimmy says, closing the door and slumping back against it in relief. "Er… heard you've had a bit of a swoon."

"I did not swoon," Mr. Barrow assures him with a scowl so much the usual that it puts Jimmy at ease completely. "Swooning is for ladies of high breeding. I, as a working class lad, took a manly fall, and you'll not breathe a contrary word to anyone, hear me?"

"Oh alright," Jimmy says, grinning at him. "Daisy told me you went down quite daintily, but if you think it was a 'manly fall,' I'll trust your word for it." He straightens up and pulls the door open again, because he still has to clean the dust off himself before he's got to wait at table for luncheon and Mr. Carson will skin him alive if he's late because he was dawdling in Mr. Barrow's room. "I'll see you a bit later then."

When Jimmy gets a spare moment- the lull between luncheon and tea, it is, and Molesley on hall duty- he nips up to check on Mr. Barrow again. He knocks quietly, then goes in without waiting, because what good is being mates if you can't barge in on one another when you're ill. Inside, he finds Mr. Barrow, abed and not looking well at all: pale and sweating, quite disheveled, much worse than earlier. His dark hair is laying damp against his forehead, not a trace of this morning's pomade in it all anymore.

"You look terrible," Jimmy tells him when the man blinks over at him groggily.

Mr. Barrow laughs at that, but it comes out like rocks against glass. "'S kind of you," he says hoarsely.

"Well, I'm a caring sort of person," Jimmy says, and then stops, because that's a bit too close to home, isn't' it? "Erm," he says awkwardly. "Is there, er, anything I can fetch you? A cold cloth, maybe, or…" He scans Mr. Barrow's room, looking for inspiration. "A fresh glass of water, d'ya think?"

"Nothing as drastic as a glass of water," Thomas teases, lip curling up in half a smile. "Could you read me my letter from Agatha, though? Only, I 'aven't had time yet, what with one thing and another, and my eyes have gone all blurry, just now. Only if you've the time, of course."

"Sure I can," Jimmy says. "Where's it got to?"

"The desk," Mr. Barrow says, pointing with a shaking hand. "Bottom drawer."

The bottom drawer sticks a bit and when Jimmy finally manages to yank it open, the reason becomes apparent: it's stuffed to the top with letters, some of them quite old, by the looks of it. The one from Agatha is on top, Jimmy discovers, but he can't quite help himself for the curiosity and, when a quick glance over his shoulder at Mr. Barrow shows the man's eyes to be closed, Jimmy plucks another off the pile.

_My dearest Thomas,_

_It's been months since we've touched but it seems like years. I think of our time together in the summer and long for it. Will you ever return to New York, I wonder? My offer still stands, if you find yourself at loose ends or without the will to go on._

_I've met someone, as a matter of fact, but he's not you and he never will be. He's nice enough, though, and quite fit. Tall and dark-haired, he is, and he likes his lads blonde, as I know you do. How is your own wayward lad, as it happens? Is he still rejecting you? I know you said that wasn't the way of it, but I've never even met this boy and I know he's having you on. Don't let him make a fool of you, dear. If he doesn't want to kiss you, that's fine, but you'd best remind him there are plenty of blokes out there dying for the chance at it; if that doesn't change his mind, he's all beauty and no brains, as I've long suspected from your letters._

_In any case, remember that I'm still here, if you should ever want me: your own dear love, though you may never return it. Send me a photograph, if you would, or at the very least, remember to write._

_All my love,_  
_Stewart_

Stewart? Who the bloody buggering hell is Stewart? The letter is dated for almost a year ago, as well, so what the blazes is it doing on the top of this pile? Surely Mr. Barrow has had more letters (and more important), enough that this one should be buried deep in the mess. And just who does this bastard think he is, calling Mr. Barrow by his Christian name like that? Even Jimmy doesn't call him that (except that once, after that kiss, and once again after the beating at the fair, but he'd been under pressure both of those times, so they don't rightly count). And that's all right and proper, too, not this bloody American cheek; Jimmy doesn't even think of Mr. Barrow by his other name (except, no, that's not true either, because Jimmy's more than once caught himself thinking, Thomas, when he looks at the man's mouth. It makes his stomach hurt to do so, but he tries not to think of it, and that's the best he can do).

This cad, though, what right does he have to say all this rot about Mr. Barrow, and worse, about Jimmy? Because of course he's talking about Jimmy- what other blonde "wayward lad" has Mr. Barrow got? Not that Jimmy is wayward, nor is he all beauty and no brains. Just because he doesn't want- no, just because he's not ready to take what he wants (if he does want it, because he's not sure, he's just not sure, and that makes his head spin and his stomach ache and his heart start to patter uncontrollably. Because even if he did want that, could he ever go through with it? And if he found he couldn't do, would it hurt them worse than he's already done?), that's no reason for this daft American to be offering his services to Mr. Barrow in Jimmy's stead.

"Jimmy?" Mr. Barrow asks suddenly and Jimmy whirls around, dropping both Stewart's letter and Agatha's. "You alright?"

"Fine," Jimmy says quickly, picking up Stewart's letter and shoving it back into the drawer then slamming the drawer shut. "I've only just remembered I'm supposed to be helping Mr. Carson with something. I'll, er, how 'bout I come back up later and we can read this letter then?" It's a lie, of course, but Jimmy's head is so full and his hands so shaky that he doesn't know if he can get through Agatha's long-winded letter right now, not with Mr. Barrow's piercing eyes on him the whole time, not with Stewart's words (_he's having you on_) still fresh in his mind.

"Alright," Mr. Barrow says, closing his eyes once more and turning away wearily.

Jimmy can't get the letter out of his head all the rest of the day. He gets scolded after dinner for being too fidgety (though Jimmy'd bet his weight in gold none of the family even glanced in his direction, let alone noticed his restlessness), and his stomach hasn't stopped aching in hours. He turns Molesley down flat when the man suggests a hand of cards, and instead goes upstairs to Mr. Barrow's room, because he'd promised, hadn't he? He's not sure he'll be able to stop himself from blurting out his frustrations about that damn letter, but if he breaks his promise, Stewart's accusations would be correct. He's not, though. Jimmy's not having Mr. Barrow on; he just needs more time, is all, to sort out things he didn't even realize until recently (the night in the kitchen garden, if he's honest, when he'd seen Mr. Barrow's bare hand and touched it for overlong) needed sorting. Luckily, though, when he gets to the room, Mr. Barrow is asleep, so Jimmy just wets the cool cloth on his forehead again and goes to his own room, where he just knows he'll lie awake all night and stare at the ceiling and never sleep.

The second day of the illness, Mr. Barrow is, if anything, even worse. When Jimmy brings his breakfast tray, he's sweating like mad in his sleep and won't rouse for anything. Jimmy sets the tray down so hard he's sure the teacup chips (and they'll laugh later, he's sure, about how much crockery this fever cost the house), and runs to find Mrs. Hughes in the servants hall, where he begs on literal bended knee to be allowed to call for the doctor.

"Alright," Mrs. Hughes agrees at once. "No need for hysterics, James. Go and ring down to the village and I'll take Mr. Barrow a fresh cloth."

Jimmy's less than coherent on the phone, to be sure, but Dr. Clarkson's housekeeper gets the message, and soon enough, the doctor is at Mr. Barrow's bedside. Jimmy paces nervously in the hall until Molesley comes to drag him away to help clear away the breakfast things. Jimmy goes- whingingly, he'll admit- and by the time he gets back, the doctor's with Mrs. Hughes in her sitting room. Jimmy unabashedly listens at the grate.

"-fever is unusually high," Doctor Clarkson is saying. "Haven't seen one this bad since 1918."

Jimmy's heart clenches and feels as though he might be sick. Not the Spanish 'flu, he thinks. Can't be. His poor dead mum's face comes to him then, her pale, drawn, sweaty face, and she had dark hair, like Mr. Barrow, but it had lost its shine by that point, and she'd clutched his hand and called him Jack, like she thought he was his father, and then her eyes had rolled up in her head and her body shook with tremors and when she'd stilled, the life had gone out of her.

Jimmy doesn't realize where he's going, too focused on the buzzing in his ears, until he's standing outside Mr. Barrow's door. He shouldn't go in, he thinks, not when it's catching, but he can't get his mum's face just before she died out of his mind and he has to know if Mr. Barrow looks like that, like he might not make it to the night. So Jimmy steels himself, reaches out, and turns the knob.

Mr. Barrow's on his bed with the coverlet all tangled up around his legs and his shirt soaked through. He's still as death, but he rouses when Jimmy approaches him and hope rises in Jimmy's chest. Maybe not, he thinks. Maybe Mr. Barrow will be alright, after all. Except then Mr. Barrow turns his head, looks blearily up at Jimmy with wide, unfocused eyes and says, "Am I hit?"

"What's that?" Jimmy asks. His hand reaches out on its own to touch Mr. Barrow's brow and finds him burning to the touch.

"Why's the shelling stopped?" Mr. Barrow asks, breathing becoming ragged. "Am I shot? Are we- where are we, Jimmy?"

The thought comes to Jimmy then that Mr. Barrow is delirious, thinking he's at the Front or something like that. "We're at Downton," he explains. "You're not hit. You're safe."

"I heard the shelling," Mr. Barrow says, voice breaking on the last word. "It was- it was everywhere and the blood on the sheets and I thought… I thought you were dead, Jimmy." There are tears in his eyes all of the sudden and then they're spilling down his cheeks and Jimmy knows it's got to be the fever, got to be how Thomas is dying, just like Jimmy's mum. She'd cried, too, before the end, and all he could do was sit by her bed and hold her hand, her poor trembling hand.

"I'm not," Jimmy insists, a lump rising up in his own throat. "I'm not dead. And you're not, either." He doesn't think of the shelling, the terror and the noise, because he hasn't got the space in his mind for it, not now that there are more important things to worry about than the war. He'd thought for all the years in the trenches that the war and the shells were the only thing he could worry about, but he knows better now.

"Oh," Mr. Barrow says in a small, frightened, voice. Then he closes his eyes again and drifts back under.

Jimmy stares at him, at his lovely face and wonders what's going to happen. If Mr. Barrow should die, what would Jimmy do? Would he write Agatha, let her know she's practically a widow twice-over and her son fatherless? Would he be able to face her, if he visited? Would he be able to look the boy in the eye, with his face so like his father's? Would he even have the strength to do anything right and proper at all, or even get up in the mornings? He'd be shattered, he knows it, if anything were to happen to Mr. Barrow… to Thomas, but would it break every part of him? Would he go on living and feeling empty inside the way he had after his mother's death, or would he blow out his brains for love of a man he'd rejected? Would there even be anything left at all on the earth for him without this man?

"James?" a timid voice asks and Jimmy looks up, blinks tears away and glares. It's stupid daft Oliver, of course, just one of the many, apparently, that Thomas loves more than Jimmy.

"Get out!" Jimmy shouts at him, and Oliver cowers back, but doesn't leave.

"Mr. Barrow's goin' ta die, isn't he?" the lad asks and Jimmy scowls at him.

"He isn't!" he snaps. "Don't you have work, boy?"

"You ain't the only one to care about 'im," the lad says, but he goes back down the stairs all the same.

Jimmy stares at the spot where the boy was until his eyes start to blur.

Ages later, a minute or maybe an hour, another voice calls to him. "James?" it asks, and Jimmy looks up into the worried face of Mrs. Hughes. He turns away quickly, wiping his face on his sleeve, because he's crying full-out now, and he'll not have her see his shame. She's never liked him, and Jimmy's used to that, but it doesn't matter now, not when she's approaching him carefully.

"Are you ill?" Mrs. Hughes asks, and Jimmy manages to jerk his head from side to side.

"'m fine," he tells her, voice rough from the tears.

"You're quite sure?" she asks, and there's something in her voice, something she's not saying. "Because if you weren't ill, Mr. Carson would be needing you to be getting on with your duties. But if you were ill…" she trails off meaningfully.

Jimmy stares at her in shock, and blinks wetly before he manages to get his mouth working again. "I'm ill, Mrs. Hughes," he says at last. He thinks about putting on a fake cough, but the noise of it might disturb Thomas and that's the last thing Jimmy wants now.

"Very well," Mrs. Hughes says, like it's all well and good, like she isn't letting him skive off so he doesn't have to leave Thomas's side. She hesitates, then continues, "I suppose you heard what Doctor Clarkson said, then?"

Jimmy sniffs and shrugs.

"Well then," she says gently. "I suggest you make yourself known. If you've any… regrets, or the like, now is the time to say so."

"What's the point?" Jimmy blurts out angrily before he can stop himself. "He can't hear me. Doesn't even know where he is! He won't even know I've even said anything at all."

"But you'll know," she says. "If you need anything, or if he worsens, come fetch me." Then she turns heel and walks back out of the room, pulling the door behind her.

Jimmy stares a long time after her, same as he'd done for Oliver, then turns back to look at Mr. Barrow, still and pale as ever. He knows Mrs. Hughes is right, and he's got to say something. He'll be damned if he lets Mr. Barrow die without telling him how he feels. Of course, if Jimmy knew how he felt, he wouldn't be in this bloody state, would he?

"Mr. Barrow," Jimmy starts, then has to clear his throat, trying to find the words to say. "Thomas," he says, and it feels right on his lips, so he says it again. "Thomas. I want to tell you… I'm sorry. I am sorry. I never meant… any of that stuff between us to happen, not like that. I dunno what it is I do want, never have, but you… mean a lot to me. I care about you, more'n you know."

And that's it, that's all he has, and it's not his heart and soul laid bare, but it's all he can think to say. On an impulse, he leans down and kisses his forehead, which is hot against his lips. It's an intimate thing, but he couldn't possibly be more worried than he is right now, so the action doesn't give him the fright it might ordinarily. Instead, he moves to sit on the edge of Mr. Barrow's bed, takes his hand, and settles in to wait. For good or for ill, Jimmy will be here, holding this dear man's hand.

"Jimmy?" a voice says, and Jimmy blinks awake to find himself very, very close to the face of Thomas Barrow.

"Gah!" he says and jerks back, but not so far he'd fall off the bed. He takes a look around him to get his bearings and finds that he's stretched out on Thomas's bed, fully clothed but thoroughly wrinkled. Through the curtain at the window, he can see the golden-red glow of a sunrise. He struggles for a moment to remember what had happened last night to cause them to wake in this position, but then the illness comes back to him and he recalls sitting up with Thomas half the night, changing out the cool rag on his forehead, forcing glasses of water onto him when he'd woken, and gently persuading him he wasn't at the Front or indeed, in any danger from the Hun at all.

"You're alright, then?" he asks. Thomas has some color back in his face and his eyes look more focused, if not entirely clear. His skin, when Jimmy touches his brow, is cooler to the touch than it has been in days.

"Sore all over," Thomas tells him. "But what are you doing here?"

"Oh," Jimmy says, a panic going through him. He sits up and distances himself from Thomas as much as he can without overbalancing. "I was just… looking after you. But I can just- I'll go, shall I?" He stands and gathers his shoes, which he must have slipped off at some point in the night.

"Jimmy, that's not what I-" Thomas starts, but Jimmy talks over him, suddenly all too aware of how intimate their position had just been.

"I'll be late for breakfast," Jimmy tells him, and then escapes out the door and into his own room, where he glares himself down in the mirror. He looks disheveled, almost debauched, and he'd spent the night in Thomas's room, touching his face and telling him how much he cared for him. Thomas, though, he hadn't heard a word, had he? Jimmy'd been the only one there, the only one what heard him making such a fool of himself, playing the lavender twit, and that means… he can take it all back, can't he? And now that Mr. Barrow's fever has obviously broken and he's not going to die (and the relief at that thought is so overpowering Jimmy has to sit) there's no reason to make any rash decisions. After all, Jimmy knows nothing for sure, except that he cares very deeply for Thomas Barrow. That's enough to be getting on with, isn't it?


End file.
